Israel has announced the launch of a “targeted” military operation early Wednesday morning inside Gaza’s largest hospital Al-Shifa, where thousands of Palestinians are believed to be sheltering.
In recent days, conditions inside the hospital, which has run out of fuel and is no longer considered operational, have deteriorated rapidly with doctors warning of a “catastrophic” situation for patients, staff and displaced people still inside.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had begun “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital.”
A journalist at Al-Shifa told CNN that Israeli tanks could be seen inside the facility’s complex.
“We can see them pointing the guns of the tanks toward the hospital. We are not sure whether soldiers are inside the hospital [buildings], but they are inside the complex with the tanks,” Khader Al Za’anoun, a reporter for the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, told CNN.
Za’anoun said there were gunfire exchanges across the yard, and some of the windows in one of the buildings were out.
Israel on Wednesday accused Hamas of using the large hospital complex for military purposes which, it said, “jeopardizes the hospital’s protected status under international law.”
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